


ghosts that we knew

by weathering



Series: you fell in love with icarus [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Modern Thedas, PTSD, Slow Burn, addiction mention, minor infidelity, now without jesus lions, the narnia au nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-14 12:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weathering/pseuds/weathering
Summary: When he remembers falling out of the wardrobe, it doesn’t feel like he’s returned anywhere. Cullen sees it as a second birth; both times, he had not asked for it to happen.Things started the same way both times too; he opened his eyes and started screaming.





	1. Chapter 1

When he remembers falling out of the wardrobe, it doesn’t feel like he’s returned anywhere. Cullen sees it as a second birth; both times, he had not asked for it to happen. Things started the same way both times too; he opened his eyes and started screaming. 

 

* * *

 

His siblings take to being forced back into their younger bodies and their former world with different levels of grace. Mia barely stumbles. She takes it in stride, just like she’s taken to everything in the past twenty years, with her head held high and an authority that can only come from ruling. Her shoulders are heavier than they were before, but she doesn’t lose any of her authority. Mia adapts, keeps her head held high. She may have lost her kingdom, but she’s not going to let that stop her.

There are new kingdoms to be won. 

Branson becomes sullen and angry, frustrated by his weak limbs and small stature. He wants nothing more than to be strong again. In time, his anger subsides, as do his memories. Secretly, he’s glad. He always hated the attention, that everyone knew his face and had expectations of who he was and who he should be. Now he’s entirely anonymous, and it’s a relief. He’s still homesick, at times, but copes by never speaking of it. As if pretending it never happened will dull the pain.

Rosalie misses the Kingdom the most, spends her days writing down everything she can remember in notebook after notebook in frustratingly childish handwriting. It takes her the better part of the year. When she’s finished, she locks the notebooks in a trunk at the base of her bed and doesn’t mention them again. She builds herself a new court, a following of people who she’s picked off of the ground and healed as best as she could. As the years pass, she thinks of it less, and when she finds the notebooks in the trunk years later it’ll all feels like a dream to her.

Cullen falls out of the wardrobe and straight into disbelief. He’s so deeply convinced that this world is a lie that he refuses to accept that this is now their reality. He sneaks back into the room that night only to find a wall at the back of the wardrobe, and it takes out any hope he had. Mia finds him there later with the wardrobe knocked over, beating against the wall with bloodied palms. She holds his too small body against hers, crying as Cullen sinks into his grief.

“You promised,” he sobs, clinging onto her nightgown with bloody hands. “You promised.”

They both know that she couldn’t promise anyones safety, even when she’d made the promise, days and weeks and another world ago. It doesn’t stop Mia’s heart from breaking for him, watching as he gets so entrenched in his grief that he doesn’t know how to start climbing out, unsure of how to live in this new old world. 

 

* * *

 

As it always does, the grief recedes over time, changing to hollow longing over the year. It sinks into the background, and soon all he is left with is the nightmares and feeling overwhelmingly out of place. The city is too big and too loud; all the sensory input leaves him with splitting headaches. He doesn’t fit in, with the noise and the civilians. He has no purpose here, no future.

“They don’t understand,” he spits at Mia after getting suspended for the third time that month. “How could any of them possibly understand?”

She just looks at him with tired eyes, shoulders too heavy to hold up. Sometimes he thinks that even she doesn’t understand. Other times, he think she understands just too well.

“We do as we have always done,” she tells him. “We endure.”

 

* * *

 

Most nights, Cullen dreams of war. He spends hours hacking through demon after demon, wearing faces of people that he thinks he knew, once. He’s not sure what’s worse; having to cut them down or knowing that he’s forgotten them.

On the easier nights, he isn’t fighting alone. He never sees her, but he can feel her there. Her sword always made a particular sound as it swung through the air, and he feels the electricity radiating off of her. At times, Cullen thinks he hears her laugh, and it cheers him even as he watches his soldiers get torn down around him.

As much as he wants to, he never seems able to turn around to look at her. It doesn’t keep him from trying, to catch a glance of her over his shoulder or out of the corner of his eye. Cullen will try to shout for her, waking up with her name still caught in his throat.

_ Ari. _

 

* * *

 

It’s a close call, but Cullen graduates. He doesn’t bother changing out of his robes, just heads straight for the recruitment office. The woman sitting at the desk takes one look at him and wordlessly hands him the form. Cullen knows exactly what she sees in his face, has seen it himself in enough recruits. It’s the look of resignation. This is the only thing he knows how to do, and he’s going to do it.

Rosalie cries when he comes home in a uniform while Branson says nothing. Neither does Mia, but her face says enough. She knew this was coming. She understands; she had helped shape him into a warrior long ago. It’s not something he can just let go of.

Mia is the only one who comes to send him off. They don’t say anything on the way to the station, don’t mention how people move out of their way when they move through the crowds. Neither had ever quite unlearned how to command a room by movement alone, how to pass through a space unseen. They didn’t forget how to ignore the looks either, so when they get to the right platform Mia pulls him close, ignoring everyone else there.

“Be careful out there,” she demands-- the same demand she’s made of him countless times, lifetimes ago. “Do only what must be done.”

Mia stays on the platform until the train leaves, a Queen sending her last soldier into battle.

 

* * *

 

Cullen does not make friends in the army. He fights a little too efficiently for that, to the point that he makes the others uneasy. Once he’s deployed, it doesn’t take long for the rumors to start. About how he guesses the enemies strategy more often than not, how he saved someone’s life with a knife to the enemy’s jugular, thrown from ten paces. Everyone agrees that he’s a good soldier, and one you want on your squad. But he’s too quick, too efficient, and entirely too at ease with blood and death for a nineteen year old. 

He knows they whisper about him, in the dark. Cullen doesn’t care; he has a purpose. A way forward, a way to help. That’s all that matters.

 

* * *

 

When he had joined up, Cullen had assumed that battle would keep him focused. That it would give him purpose again, would help him forget. Instead it dredges up memories, and he spends each night dreaming of home. If he’s lucky, he’ll dream of her; of red hair spilling across clean sheets, the laughter that followed a barely-dodged bolt of electricity during training, the weight of her on his chest when she’d bested him in a sparring match, the lilt of her voice when she sang in Dalish.

Cullen isn’t usually lucky. Magic had made war that much more brutal; he’d seen soldiers get possessed, torn apart, electrocuted, and incinerated. He doesn’t miss watching his soldiers get torn down by darkspawn. Even without the magic, swords and arrows made for slow, painful deaths. If nothing else, it makes him thankful for his gun, even if he misses the weight of a sword and shield in his hands.

At the end of the day, war hasn’t changed at all. The details are different, but it’s still bloody and it’s still terrible. It’s what he’s good at. It gives him something to wake up for.

 

* * *

 

He ends up leaving the army as abruptly as he joined. When Cullen wakes up in the hospital, he’s surprised that he’s there at all, and by the look of the nurse staring down at him, she hadn’t been feeling too hopeful either. 

“Someone’s watching out for you,” she tells him as she changes the bandages that cover his torso.

Cullen can’t suppress his grimace and has to look away. “Something like that.”

It’s another month before they let him stand up by himself. When he catches sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror hysteria comes bursting out of his throat, starting as shaky laughter and ending up in hyperventilation that tears his stitches. He clutches onto the sink with shaking hands and makes himself stare at the still healing cut across his upper lip. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and his hair is greasy and limp, but he hasn’t looked this much like himself in eight years. The sound of the mirror shattering brings a nurse rushing back in.

They don’t let him up again for another week, and when they do the bathroom mirror is gone. He avoids his reflection after that. When Mia comes to pick him up, he knows that it’s scarred exactly like it has before by the way the blood rushes from her face. Neither of them mention it.

 

* * *

 

Cullen goes to physical therapy twice a week as prescribed, takes the pain medication like he’s told. But when it’s time to start coming off the pills, he can’t bring himself to take the final step and stop taking them at all.

“It still hurts,” he finds himself telling the doctor. “I can’t sleep, otherwise.”

Neither of these statements are false, Cullen tells himself as he shakes the pills into his palms. He’s just letting the doctor assume that he’s talking about the tangle of freshly healed wounds that are layered across his torso instead of how useless he feels. The drugs keep him comfortably numb, keeps the nightmares and the headaches away. He spends a lot of time staring at the ceiling before he falls asleep, alternatively hoping that he’ll actually wake up where he’s supposed to be and wondering if the whole thing was just a childhood illusion after all.

Maybe it was just a shared dream after all, he finds himself thinking.

* * *

 

 

It was only a matter of time before Mia finds out, and it’s the first time he sees her lose her composure in years. She yells while he sits silently on the edge of his bed, not moving even as she flings objects past his head. He’s still too numb to react, too tired to protest. It ends with Mia deciding that he is in no state to live alone, he’ll be moving in with her. Cullen follows her as he always has, quietly.

It’s a long time before he’s able to quietly follow her lead again. Withdrawal is not a quiet or easy process, but Mia stubbornly refuses to let him fail. She stays with him through his night terrors, sits infuriatingly still as he throws harsh accusations in her face, makes him eat even when he doesn’t want to.

“You have weathered worse,” she tells him, holding him tight as he shakes. “You will get through this.”

Cullen doesn’t think there’s anything worse than this. He doesn’t think it will ever end, that maybe this is a punishment for two lives worth of blood on his hands.

 

* * *

 

It takes time, but he does get through it. He’s a little worse for wear, eyes more tired than before, but he’s standing on his own two feet again.

The last thing he does before he moves out is to have someone shave his hair off. When Mia opens the door, she spends a moment staring at him. Cullen is just about to break the silence out of awkwardness when she speaks.

“You look good,” Mia says.

Cullen knows she means  _ you don’t look like yourself _ . That’s exactly what he’d been going for. He can’t do anything about the scar on his face, but he can change his hair. It’s one less reminder of what he’s lost when he looks in the mirror. It’s the best he can do.


	2. Chapter 2

Cullen meets Emma at the grocery store. He’s just moved out of Mia’s house, and has a small, rundown studio apartment that he rented entirely based on the large windows and the skylight. Cullen hasn’t been shopping for himself in years, and finds himself standing in front of fourteen different kinds of flour.

“You look a little lost,” she tells him, voice kind. “What are you making?”

“Bread,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “My brother told me it would be easy, but I’m already at a bit of a loss.”

Emma laughs and hands him a bag. “For bread, you’ll want this one.”

Cullen thanks her, and doesn’t think much of the interaction until two weeks later and he runs into her again. She asks him how the bread turned out. The next time, it’s if he can hand her a jar from the top shelf. The fourth time they run into each other, she asks if he’d like to get coffee with her. He’s surprised, but Cullen finds himself saying yes. He blushes and stammers his way through their first date. Emma still asks to see him again.

It’s after getting home from their third date that he finds himself thinking that she’s nothing like Ari. Emma is small and pale with short brown hair, compassionate with soft edges, nothing like-

Its as far as he gets before he realises that he can’t picture Ari clearly anymore. He’s struggling to remember her face, but can only bring up blurry glimpses of it; the quirk of her eyebrow, thick curly hair she kept braided, the scar along the underside of her jaw, and the slight slope of her nose. He can’t remember her voice or the colour of her eyes, where her freckles stopped and started. The thing he does remember is the way her hands looked, covered in blood and holding a sword made of light-

He calls Mia at one in the morning and begs her to tell him everything she remembers, but she can’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know. Cullen knocks his desk over in a despair fuelled rage and doesn’t answer the phone or go outside for three days.

On the fourth day, he shows up on Emma’s doorstep with daffodils and an apology. She thanks him for the flowers and doesn’t ask him about his bruised knuckles. He’s tired and he’s shaken, but it doesn’t happen again. He doesn’t think he has any tears or rage left in him.

 

* * *

 

Nightmares from two different wars make sleeping seem like a futile exercise. When it was just memories from one war that plagued his nights, Ari would drag him out of them, wake him up and chase off the nightmares as fiercely as she’d down any other enemy. She’d sing Dalish lullabies until he fell asleep again, soft and lilting things he didn’t understand a word of. Cullen would wake up with her wrapped around him, as if she could physically shield him from his dreams.

Now Emma will wake him up before his screams will. She’ll try to calm him, but he’s still trying to escape the gunshots ringing out from behind Ari, the laughing demons holding hand grenades, the fire that is burning behind his eyelids. Even when Emma manages to calm him down a bit, he isn’t able to fall asleep again. Even with her there, it’s still the nights that drive him closest to going back to the drugs. If nothing else, they kept things quiet. They let him rest. Most days, that’s all he wants.

It’s a long time coming, but being with Emma gets him close enough.

 

* * *

 

After a year of dating they move in together. Emma doesn’t push him to talk about his past, and Cullen doesn’t offer up anything earlier than joining the military, and even then the details are few and far between. He’s well aware that she’s come to the conclusion that he’s lost someone, and has made assumptions based on what she does knows. He doesn’t correct her; it’s accurate enough.

He’s worried about introducing Emma to his siblings. She puts up with his migraines and his nightmares without complaint, but he’s still worried that if this goes poorly that it’ll be the last straw. Cullen is anxious right up until the point Rosalie throws open the door, embracing Emma like she’s known her for years. They take to each other immediately, all friendly smiles and warmth. Branson takes a little longer to come around, quietly passing judgment from behind his stern eyes. But when he decides that he does approve, he casts one last sad glance Cullen before he welcomes her. They put Emma at ease; they’ve always been good at that.

Mia watches them from over the edge of her teacup, poised and her face arranged so that she gives nothing away. She’s not unwelcoming, but there’s a distinct lack of warmth. When Cullen catches her eye, there’s a moment where he sees a grief flash across her face. It’s gone so quickly he thinks he may have been seeing things.

She catches his arm as they go to leave, pulling him in so she can hug him. Her arms are tight across his ribcage.

“Let this be enough,” Mia whispers in his ear.

“I’m trying, Mia,” Cullen mutters into her hair. “Maker knows I’m trying.”

There are a lot of ‘enough’s in their relationship; it’s not perfect, but Cullen hopes that if he just keeps working at it that it will continue to grow. Cullen does love Emma, as much as he can. He tries not to compare her to the handful of memories he has left of Ari. He knows it’s not the same. All he wants is to love her as much as he loved Ari, but he doesn’t remember how. So he does everything he can. He brings her flowers in the winter when she misses the spring, holds her after she fights with her family, and takes her dancing even though he’s terrible at it.

When Cullen calls Mia to tell her that they’re getting married, she doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“Are you happy?” she finally asks. He thinks she might be crying, but when he asks her about it later she’ll claim it was the pregnancy hormones.

“It’s more than I expected,” he answers after a minute of thinking it over, and the truth is a relief. “It’s enough.”

 

* * *

 

The day their daughter is born is the happiest Cullen remembers being in years. She’s so small, and when he gets to hold her for the first time it feels like waking up.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that,” Emma says softly, and Cullen looks up at her.

He doesn’t know how to respond to that statement, and after a moment of staring at Emma he apologises, hoping it doesn’t sound too much like a question. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s good to see,” she reassures him, squeezing his arm.

 

* * *

 

Ava grows into a happy, curious child with a touch too much seriousness for her age. After a year of demanding new bedtime stories each night, it gets too expensive to keep buying her story books. Out of drive to keep Ava happy and with no other stories to tell, Cullen finds himself telling her about the many adventures of a Knight Enchanter and the Queen and kingdom she serves. It’s a gentler version of events, with less blood and softer edges, but it’s still a variation of the truth.

“What does the Knight Enchanter look like?” Ava asks one night, looking up at him with curious eyes.

Cullen’s heart skips a beat, tries to remember anything of substance. “She was tall, with curly red hair and many battle scars.”

Ava takes a moment to process the information before frowning. “Why does she have so many scars? You said she was the best!”

It’s not the question Cullen was expecting, suddenly remembering the recurring argument he and Ari had. “Because she could be a little reckless when she was protecting people.”

“Is that why you have so many?” Ava asks, poking at one of the scars on his forearms.

“That sounds about right,” Emma says from the doorway, smiling. “What story is your father telling you tonight?”

“The Kingdom!” Ava shouts, throwing her arms in the air.

Emma furrows her brow a bit, stepping into the room to put a hand on Cullen’s shoulder. “That story, still? You have quite the imagination. You should consider writing it down.”

“It’s the best story,” Ava insists, hugging her plush bear close. “Bear likes it too.”  

Cullen laughs, hoping it sounds less hollow than it feels. He doesn’t think he has space left in his brain for imagination.

“I think this is enough,” he says firmly, trying to convince himself of it as well. “And I think it is time for you to go to sleep.”

Ava frowns as Cullen tucks her in, but doesn’t resist. “But I want to know what happens next!”

“Tomorrow,” he promises, shutting off the lights.

 

* * *

 

Cullen wakes up suddenly when there’s a soft tug on his hand. He opens his eyes and sees Ava’s form outlined by the weak light coming in through the window.

“Dad?” she whispers, voice shaking. “Something’s wrong.”

He’s wide awake in seconds, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for her. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

She lets herself be picked up, tucking her head under his chin. “I don’t know. Something feels wrong.”

Cullen rubs her back, feeling more than a little helpless. “Was it a nightmare?”

“It didn’t feel like that. It felt real,” Ava mumbles.

He holds her tighter. “That happens, sometimes. I get nightmares too.”

“I know,” she says, sounding sad. “I don’t like it.”

“Me either,” Cullen says, rubbing her back for a few more minutes. “Do you want to stay here or go back to your bed?"

She considers it for a moment. “My room.”

Cullen stands carefully, carrying her back down the hall and into her bedroom. Nothing seems out of place, so he carefully sets Ava back down on her bed, tucking her in and handing her Bear.

“Can you stay?” she asks, still sounding worried.

“Of course,” Cullen says, trying to fit himself onto Ava’s child sized bed. “I’ll stay as long as you need me too.”

Emma finds them there the next morning, with Cullen hanging halfway off the bed and Ava starfished across most of the space. They’re both snoring. Emma stifles her laughter long to take a photo before waking Cullen up for work.

 

* * *

 

Two years after starting to tell Ava about what she has dubbed ‘The Kingdom’, it’s still her favourite topic for bedtime stories. She refuses to hear them from Emma, saying that it’s not her story to tell. (Cullen doesn’t resist; Ava doesn’t know how right she is there). Emma doesn’t seem to mind, happy to have an extra hour each night to work while Cullen tries to pull together enough memories to come up with something cohesive.

They’re on their way back from lunch at Mia’s house when Ava speaks up.

“Mia’s the Queen, right?”

Cullen is glad they’re at a stoplight, because he’s frozen in place. He stares at the road long enough that Ava repeats the question. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to relax.

“What’s that?” His voice only shakes a little bit.

“Mia,” Ava repeats. “She’s the Queen of The Kingdom.”

It’s not a question this time, and he knows she’s aware of that when he meets her eyes in the rearview mirror. She stares at him for a moment, and then goes back to having her stuffed bear prance back and forth across her legs.

“Don’t worry. The Knight Enchanter will be back soon,” she adds casually, humming to herself. “Then she won’t be so lonely anymore.”

“Mia isn’t lonely,” Emma tells Ava. “She has Uncle Jamie and Gwyn.”

Ava scoffs. “But the Knight Enchanter and the Queen are _best friends_ , Mum. And then her brother won’t be so sad anymore. Right Dad?”

Cullen is saved from answering by a car horn blaring behind them, making him aware of the now green light. He knows she doesn’t mean anything by it, that she can’t. He’s never called them by anything but their titles, and has always been careful to never mention the Commander except in passing.

“Looks like she got your imagination,” Emma teases quietly, oblivious of Cullen’s deathgrip on the steering wheel. “And is attempting to set Branson up on dates.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, praying that it’s all it is. "Looks like it." 

It has to be. There is no magic here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading the second chapter! We're about a third of the way there now, maybe a little less. I know this is probably a little unexpected given the prologue, but trust me on this. It's going somewhere. 
> 
> As always, come find me on tumblr at onesparrow.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

As time goes on, Cullen begins to lose more and more details of Ari, keeps struggling to hold onto the wisps of memory he’s left with. It’s rare that he’ll remember something new, and it’s usually just a flicker of a memory. It’s been months since it’s happened, so when he suddenly remembers the exact spot on Ari’s ribs where she was ticklish, he freezes, afraid that even moving will scare it back into the recesses of his mind. It’s followed by the memory of the way she’d laugh when he ran his teeth across the spot, trying to squirm away until she got tired of it and would flip him onto his back instead, fingers digging into his sides in retaliation.

It’s not a profound memory, not even a singular memory at that, just an experience that had been repeated enough that it could be distilled down into one thing. Cullen plays the memory back and forth, even though he can’t quite remember her face.

When Emma finds him standing motionless in front of the half folded pile of laundry a few minutes later, he feels guilty. He blushes, claiming a headache and apologising for not having the laundry done yet with a quick kiss, knowing that’s not what he should be apologising for.

 

* * *

 

 It’s pouring outside, and the train station is packed full of commuters trying to stay dry. Cullen is frustrated, already running late because Ava forgot her lunch, and he forgot his umbrella at the school in the process. The few blocks from the parking garage to the train station has left him soaking wet, and on top of that he’s hungry. He’s in the middle of judging whether or not he has enough time to grab something to eat when he runs full tilt into someone. Cullen stumbles backwards as papers go scattering across the ground.

“Maker’s breath,” he hisses, crouching down to gather them. Today is really not his day. “I’m so sorry, I should have been watching where I was going.”

He shakes off the papers as best he can as he stands, and is in the process of handing them over when he actually looks at the person he ran into.

Cullen has seen many ghosts of Ari since he got back; people who, at a glance, make his heart stutter for a moment until he realises that they look nothing like her. For a moment, that’s what he thinks is happening, that he’s seeing another ghost, the most convincing yet. But when he blinks she still looks exactly like Ari, red curly hair piled on top of her head in braids, pointed ears flicked up in surprise. His breath catches in his throat, hand clenching around the papers in his hands as he tries in vain to process what he’s seeing, to find the detail that breaks the illusion. Yet the more Cullen looks, the more he starts to believe that this woman could be her, and when his eyes land on the scar that’s edging out from under her jaw he knows for certain. Even with the confirmation he doesn’t know what to do, is only able to keep staring and try to figure out what to say. There is a chance, he thinks, that this is a twisted coincidence after all or-

Before Cullen can figure out how to he’s supposed to react, Ari shakes herself out of her stupor, searching for something in his gaze before she speaks.

“Hey Cullen,” she says, voice cracking as she smiles. “I missed you.”

Cullen drops the papers so he can pull Ari towards him, and they hold onto each other like it’s going to keep them from drowning. Even though he thought that he’d used up all his tears years ago he’s crying, unsure if it’s from relief or joy or pain. Cullen knows he’s talking but he can’t hear what he’s saying; it could be her name, it could be a prayer. It doesn’t matter because she’s here, fingers digging into his shoulder like she’s never going to let him go again.

When they pull back Ari stays close, smiling as she brushes his tears away with her thumbs. Cullen keeps a hand cupped around the back of her neck, grounding himself in the feeling of her pulse against his fingertips.

“And to think that when my psychic told me I’d have a life changing meeting today I thought she meant this interview I just missed,” she says, dropping her hands from his face so she can pull him closer by the front of his coat. “She could have at least called it a reunion.”

Cullen laughs through the remaining tears, resting his forehead against hers. “You have a psychic?”

“I hardly think that’s what’s important right now,” she scoffs, but she’s smiling. It fades after a moment, and her grip on the front of his coat tightens. “My place is around the corner. You should dry off.”

He’s nodding before she can even finish the sentence, dropping his hand from her neck only to have Ari grab onto it, dragging him out into the rain.

 

* * *

 

Ari doesn’t let go of his hand until they get to her apartment, and then it’s only so they can shrug out of their wet coats and shoes. Cullen keeps trying and failing to brush his dripping hair away from his face. Ari rolls her eyes and vanishes into the bathroom, returning to throw a towel in his direction.

He scrubs it through his hair a few times, and when he looks up from under the towel it’s to find Ari staring at him. He takes the opportunity to stare back, filling in all the blank spots in his memories of her. Some things he knows immediately are the same; the curve of her hips, the warm tone of her skin, her gray eyes (a detail he regrets forgetting), the way she braids her hair. Other things he’s unsure of, like the scars on her face, but yet they still feel familiar. He lets himself look, wondering what she sees when she looks at him, and when his gaze returns to her eyes they’re dark. The memory of what that look means hits him like a kick to the stomach, driving all the air out of his lungs. He barely has time to let the towel fall from his hands before Ari has him pinned to the door and is kissing him with the kind of desperation she usually saved for after battles.

The kiss is far from gentle, but their reunions never were. It was always more of a desperate reassurance that they were both alive and relatively in one piece. The gentleness would come afterwards, after they were both convinced that the other was real and whole and alive.

This time it’s not any different, and it’s bringing back memories in droves. Cullen half expects to taste blood when they kiss, find it dried under Ari’s fingernails and in all the spots her armour didn’t cover. But there’s no armour here, no dirt or blood or wounds to find, no lingering magic dancing along her skin. Cullen pushes those thoughts back, old memories returning as he reaches up to find the pin that’s holding her hair up. He grins victoriously against her mouth when he finds it and pulls it loose, tangling his fingers into the red curls that spill down her back. Ari nips at his lips, tugging at his own hair in retaliation. It drags a whine out of him, makes Ari laugh softly and tug harder, pushing her body even closer to his.

Ari has him pinned, even though he has a hand tangled in her hair and the other digging into the swell of her hip, she’s entirely in control. After feeling numb for years it’s like she’s set him on fire, and he’s consumed by how much he’s missed this, how he never wants to give this up again. All Cullen wants is to get closer, to map out all the scars he’s forgotten about and all the ones he doesn’t know the stories behind yet, wants to get on his knees and see if he can make her gasp like he used to-

A door slams in the hallway, bringing Cullen crashing back into reality. He pulls away suddenly, stomach dropping as guilt winds up his throat, nearly choking him, and he manages to ask her to stop, that he can’t. Ari freezes, searching his face for an explanation, and when he slowly moves his hand off her hip he knows it was too much to hope for that she’d just ignore the movement.

She looks at his hand, running her finger over the wedding band once before dropping it.

“You’re married.”

It’s not a question, and when Ari looks back up at him her expression is flat. All Cullen can do is nod, and he sees the slightest flicker of anger across her face before it smooths out again. Ari takes a step back, and he feels a horrible combination of guilt and satisfaction at her messy hair and swollen lips. She watches him, and he can see her weighing her options. The hand Ari extends to him comes as a surprise. Cullen stares at it for a moment, unsure of what she’s offering him, and whether or not he cares.   

He takes her hand anyway, and Ari leads him to the worn down sofa in the corner, pushing him down into it. He’s surprised when she doesn’t follow him, wandering into the kitchen instead. He sits still, listening to Ari moving around, shutting cabinets and rifling through drawers. She comes back a few minutes later looking noticeably calmer and holding two steaming mugs, presses one into his hands.

“Catch me up,” she says, settling down next to him, close enough to touch but not quite.

Cullen is surprised by how easily it all comes pouring out, even the things he’s less than proud of. He can’t look her in the eye for most of it, watches the way her hands tighten around her mug when he gets to parts she doesn’t like. Ari says nothing as he recounts the last two decades, and by the time he’s done they’ve edged just close enough that their knees are touching.

They sit in silence for a few minutes until Cullen asks the question that’s been burning at the back of his mind since he saw her.

“Did you come back, or was that your world?”

Ari raises an eyebrow at him. “I was born here, just like you were. But that was my world. We belonged there.”

He can’t argue with that. He’s spent a lot of time thinking of how much easier it was to adapt to the Kingdom than it was to adapt back to this world.

Before Cullen can ask her anything else, Ari sighs, frowning. “You need time to think.”

Cullen tries to argue, wants to know all the things that he’s forgotten, everything that’s happened in the past twenty years, but she cuts him off, speaking through clenched teeth.

“No. You need time to think,” she reiterates, getting to her feet. “This is not the kind of desicion to be made spontaneously. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know when you know what you want to do.”

Cullen protests, ready to fight with her about how it isn’t fair, but he doesn’t get more than a few words out before she turns on her heel, the calm mask she’d been wearing gone, replaced by anger he’s seen her turn on her enemies. Cullen knew when he started talking that he was pushing her, and he half expects to see her eyes glowing and palms sparking as she storms towards him.

“I chose to fight for you and your family,” Ari says, tone carefully measured. “And I spent years fighting for the kingdom that you left behind. I know exactly what you’re worth to me, and what I’d sacrifice for you. What am I worth to you, Cullen? What would you sacrifice for me?”

Cullen recoils at her words, but he knows that harsh as they are that they’re true. He ducks his head, chastened, guilt returning to gather in his chest. Ari presses a piece of paper into his hand, a phone number and address written on it.  

“I’ve already made my hard choices, Cullen. Come back when you’ve made yours,” she says, voice clipped. Cullen nods, gathering his things quickly.

Cullen is already out the door when she calls after him, and he turns to see her leaning in the doorway. Ari grabs him by the front of the coat, pulling him in for a hug that’s just on the side of too tight.

“Remember,” Ari whispers in his ear, a threat and a command, “You were mine first.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now Cullen can go back to, as a friend put, to "preparing his nest of guilt".  
> Thanks for being patient with me for this chapter, I've been travelling and finding the energy at the end of the day to post anything has been difficult.


	4. Chapter 4

When Cullen steps outside, he’s surprised to find that it’s already dark outside. He pulls his phone out of his coat pocket to find several missed calls from Emma and a cascade of messages from both her and his boss. He deletes the voicemails without listening to them, the messages staying unread as a testimony to his guilt.

It’s not until he gets to his car that Cullen realises that he’s not sure if he feels guilty for betraying Emma, Ari, or both. Frustration overwhelms him, and he beats his fists against the steering wheel in hopes that the pain will bring clarity, but it only makes him want to scream. He does. It doesn’t help either.

So he drives home, anger simmering right up until the point Emma throws the front door open. She’s been crying, has bitten her nails down to the quick. She looks so relieved, and any anger that Cullen had is swept away by the guilt that comes back full force. He did this to her, and he’s only going to make things worse from this point onwards. Emma has to tug him inside, and she pulls him in for a hug as they stand in the entryway.

“I was so worried,” she says, voice slightly muffled by his coat, “The office called and said you never showed up, and you weren’t answering the phone. What happened?”

When Cullen doesn’t respond, unable to find one that seems like it will fit, she pulls back to look at him. He watches, unable to find the right words, as her eyes go from his messy hair to his red eyes to his bruised lips. He’s sickened by how thankful he is that she can’t see the scratches he can feel on the back of his neck.

“Cullen,” Emma says, meeting his eyes again. “What happened?”

He has no idea what he’s going to say when he opens his mouth, and is just as surprised when Emma is when he answers. “I’m fine. I just need to stay with Mia for a few days.”

Emma’s face crumples at his answer, but she nods and takes a deep, shaky breath. “Okay.”

Selfishly, Cullen wishes that she would put up a fight instead; it would have hurt less if she had. He goes upstairs to grab a change of clothes and some toiletries, throwing them into a duffle bag before stopping by Ava’s room. He’s expecting her to be asleep, but she rolls over to look at him when he opens the door. She reaches a tiny hand out towards him, and he goes to sit at the edge of her bed.

“Hey Ava,” he whispers, brushing her hair out of her face. “I have to go away for a few days.”

“I know,” she says, staring up at him with dark inquisitive eyes, and it’s not the first time that he thinks that he thinks she knows more than she’s letting on.

“If you need anything just call, alright?” Cullen says, and she nods before suddenly sitting up to hug him.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Ava says with conviction. “You and Mom are gonna be happy. You’ll see.”

Cullen feels a sob rise up in his throat again, but he pushes it down, presses a kiss to the top of her head instead. Out of all the guilt he’s felt so far, it’s knowing that no matter what happens that Ava will be dragged into the backlash is by far the worst. He doesn’t want to tell her that she’s wrong, that right now he really doesn’t think that things will be okay, but he can’t tell her that.

 _The civilian casualties are always the worst of it,_ he remembers Ari telling him after a particularly brutal mission.

“It will be,” he says. It’s a lot less believable when he says it. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Emma is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, arms wrapped around herself. She follows him to the door silently, and he has his hand on the doorknob before he turns around.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen says, even though it’s far from enough. “I promise I’ll explain, I just- I just need some space to think.”

Emma nods, biting her lip. He apologises again, and shuts the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

When Cullen knocks on Mia’s door, it feels strangely similar to knocking on his own door earlier. He knows what she must think when she opens the door to reveal him standing there with a duffle bag in one hand, red eyes and shaking hands.

“Cullen,” Mia says, voice hard and clipped, more imposing than anyone in a bathrobe has any right to be. “What did you do.”

He carefully pulls out the note out of his pocket, hands it over with a trembling hand. She takes it from him, skeptical. It takes Mia a moment to process what she’s looking at, but Cullen knows she’ll recognise it, even though its been years. Mia has read hundreds of reports written in that handwriting, and when it clicks her eyes widen and a hand flies to her mouth.

“Is this…?” she asks, looking from the scrap of paper to Cullen and back again. Cullen nods, gently taking the paper back out of her hands.

Mia takes a look at his duffle bag, judging him silently, and opens the door further to let him in.

“I’m going to tell Jamie not to wait up for me, and then you’re going to tell me everything,” Mia says, pointing at the sofa. “But quietly, Gwyn is already in bed.”

Cullen drops the duffle on the floor and sinks down into the sofa, rubbing his hands over his face and leaving them there until he hears his sister walk back into the room. There’s a thunk of something being set on the table, and he opens his eyes to see that Mia has brought a bottle of whiskey. He raises an eyebrow skeptically.

“Oh that’s not for you. That’s for me. You get water,” she says, handing him a glass before pouring herself a generous serving of whiskey. “Now tell me about Ari.”   

Cullen tries to keep it brief, but it feels like he talks for hours. He doesn’t look up when he’s finished, continues to stare into his empty water glass. Mia sets her own glass down before she takes his out of his trembling hands and sets it on the table. They sit in silence for a moment, listening to the clock in the hallway tick.

“You have to tell Emma,” she says quietly.

“I know.”

Mia pauses, waiting for him to continue, and when he doesn’t she sighs. “What are you going to do?”

Cullen drops his head into his hands, a headache starting at his temples. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

They sit for a moment longer, and Mia moves closer so she can rub his back. “Do you want to see Ari again?”

“Makers breath Mia, of course I want to see her again!” Cullen snaps, sitting up suddenly. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see her again. I had accepted that, but now she’s here. She’s real and she’s alive-” He rubs a hand across his face, taking a moment to calm down before he continues, voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t lose her. Not again, not when I can do something about it this time.”

He’s entirely aware of how desperate he sounds, but he can’t keep the panic out of his voice. Mia is kind enough not to mention it, lets him have a few moments to calm down.

“And Emma?” Mia asks, and Cullen flinches as the guilt comes back full force.

“I can’t tell her the truth, even though she deserves it,” he says, sighing. “I can give her the closest thing to it, and then…”

He trails off, unsure of what would happen, or what exactly he’d be telling her. He rubs his hands over his face again.

“I know Ari means a lot to you, but it’s been years. Emma is your wife-”

Cullen cuts her off before she can continue, mumbling into his hands. “Ari nearly was.”

Mia stops, staring at him skeptically. He wants to point out that given how long it had taken her to warm up to Emma in the first place she should be happier. As soon as he thinks it, his guilt increases twofold.  

“I know I don’t remember everything, but I think I would have remembered your engagement.”

“I’d had a ring for months. I was just waiting for the right moment, when things were calmer-” Cullen stops, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t tell you because I knew your excitement would have given it away. I think Ari knew, but I still wanted it to be somewhat of a surprise.”

“But we got sent back here instead,” Mia finishes, and Cullen nods. “Back here, where you grew up again, and now have a wife and a child.”

“And I love them, Mia, I really do. Ava is the best thing that’s happened to me in decades,” Mia raises an eyebrow at the exclusion of Emma in that statement, but doesn’t interrupt. “I spent two decades loving Ari. Another two mourning her. Should I continue mourning her when she’s right there? Regret not giving it a shot and end up turning that bitterness on Emma instead?”

“That’s not what I’m saying-” Mia hisses, but he cuts her off.

“Don’t we deserve happiness, after everything we’ve lost?”

Mia watches him carefully before responding. “I think that everything has a cost, Cullen.”

He knows this, and knows that no matter how this plays out that Emma will be paying the brunt of it. All Cullen can do is try to minimise the pain that he causes her, no matter what he decides to do.

Mia gets up before Cullen can speak again. Mia pauses at the foot of the stairs, voice quiet in the otherwise silent house. “Think through the consequences before you do anything rash.”

 

* * *

 

“You look like shit,” Jamie cheerfully tells him when Cullen sits down at the breakfast table the next morning, dropping a pancake onto his plate.

“Papa,” Gwyn scowls, looking more annoyed with her father than a seven year old should be able to. “ _Language._ ”

“Sorry pumpkin,” he says, ruffling her hair. “But seriously, you do.”

“Don’t worry, he deserves it,” Mia says as she breezes in, already dressed for work. Cullen glares at her; it’s easier to be angry at her than it is at a man wearing pajama pants with mabari prancing through fields of flowers on them.

“Does your head hurt again?” Gwyn asks, looking concerned.

“No, it’s not that,” Cullen tells her, even though his head does hurt. It’s more stress related than it is chronic.

Gwyn looks skeptical, but nods anyways before going back to her pancakes. Mia puts her hands on the back of Cullen’s chair and stares down at him, and he looks back, not wanting to back down.

“There’s firewood that needs chopping,” she says, finally. “It’ll help you think.”

When Mia gets home from court that night, it’s to a pile of firewood that will last them through the next winter and to a decision. Cullen just hopes it ends up being the right one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jamie is pretty much just Chris Hemsworth if Chris Hemsworth was a stay at home dad who writes series of novels about steampunk pirates. Mia is a kickass lawyer, and Gwyn is crazy good at maths.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a one shot piece and now it's the first multi-chapter thing I've ever posted. First time for everything, I guess! Hoping to update this once a week.
> 
> For a few graphics and more talk of AU's that I never meant to get this far away from me, come find me on tumblr at onesparrow.tumblr.com


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